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	Clive Dreams Interview May 2005
	The lyrics to many Arena songs are inspired by dreams, or rather nightmares. The sandman gave Clive the ideas to amongst many others Moviedrome and Opera Fanatica. A while ago, Clive told The Cage about his nightly horrors with nuclear explosions, wars with aliens, knife-wielding maniacs and going to school without trousers on. In Moviedrome I am running around in an empty city. At the top of a hill there is an enormous dome. When I finally get to the dome, I notice that it is full of people, presumably the whole city or maybe even the whole world. I cannot get their attention, because they’re all staring at screens hanging from the ceiling. There is a wave sign when somebody speaks, like in the beginning of the booklet of Immortal?. Everybody seems to be completely hypnotized. I seem to be the only conscious person in the world. When I describe this as a dream, it sounds fun. But it is the opposite when you are actually there, when you imagine what it might be like just for a moment to be in that situation. My dreams are not images, they are real and that is the trouble. I am inside the dreams and I cannot get out of them until they have done what they need to do. That is not about the visual images but about the feeling of it. I have normal dreams as well, where you go to school without your trousers on. Recently, I had a dream about a nuclear bomb. I am in a studio when there is an incredible flash like a lightning and I feel this shaking like an earthquake. We open up the front door and someone says: ‘Oh my God, it is a nuclear bomb. We are going to die.’ In that particular moment, we see the mushroom cloud. I just stood there waiting for this wall of flame to reach me. That feeling was so intensely real: ‘This is the last two seconds of my life. Right now.’ When that did not happen, I thought: ‘We have not been burnt we might as well run.’ Somebody else said: ‘There is no point. The radiation is going to kill us. We are too close. We are dead.’ ‘But we are not dead now, so we should run.’ The discussion went on like that. In the end, it turned out that is was not a nuclear weapon at all. It was an enormous explosion that had taken place far away. Even though it was not real I, had to go through that experience and - trust me – it was very, very real and not very pleasant. What does an experience like that do to you? Does it, having survived this nuclear explosion, give you a lust for life, to do all the things you ever wanted? It gives me a lot to think about. Sometimes I just feel so worn, and that can get me down. If I am not feeling strong in myself then these dreams are a killer. There have been times that those dreams are hard to bear. Sometimes the dreams can be enjoyable in an extremely action-packed way. I have been involved in wars with aliens where we have won and that is great. But normally, it is not those dreams that I get. Unfortunately with some of the dreams, I tend to wake up and carry the reality of that dream with me for the day. I think it is something I am stuck with.  It seems as though there is another end of the world album waiting for Arena. I am sure there is plenty of it. Most of the songs from Pepper’s Ghost came from dreams as well. Opera Fanatica is based on a dream in which a knife-wielding maniac is chasing me around in a theatre. It was a classic dream because wherever I would go, he was always in front of me. Even in the dream I was thinking: ‘Okay, I’m in a dream and I cannot get out until something happens. Either he kills me or I kill him.’ And I even knew that the rules of the dream decreed that if I turned round to run that way, he would be there. I was trying to beat the dream by thinking that if he is going to be in front of me wherever I go then I somehow have to engineer that his position in front of me is not good. By the time I woke up I was very tired, but I had a song. I have a serial dream as well. With Shadowland, there is a song called Dreams Of The Ferryman. That song is based on a dream I have had occasionally since I was fourteen. I have had six or seven of them in my whole life. It is like a series of episodes. It is about a serial killer. He murders women and leaves coins on their eyes. I have been getting closer and closer to finding out who he is. The danger is, that because I am so close to it, I am one of the suspects. The last dream I had is now about ten years ago. I found a body on a moor, an open ground. And then I realized that he might be after me. So I ran away. Someone in a car picked me up. We drove to a place nearby. It was a bed and breakfast. I arrived and there are five people there in five different rooms. One of those five people is the ferryman. That is where the dream finishes and I have not been back since. Are you now waiting for the dream to continue? I do not want to go back. If I go back I will be much closer to finding out who he is or maybe stopping him. I may learn his identity but he may get away, he may attack me. I don’t know. I don’t want to know I don’t think it will ever end. Most of the songs that I have written in Arena and Shadowland are based upon this material. It is my unconscious brain, basically. So I suppose I should not complain. By: Niek Hermsen